Sunday, December 17, 2006

The 12 Bars of Christmas

The date: Saturday, December 16th, 2006.

The premise: It's Erika's birthday. We celebrate by going to 12 bars in one night.

The rules: You must consume at least one drink per bar. You must finish your drink on time to get to the next bar on schedule, lest you get yelled at by the Pub Crawl Nazis (read: Erika, Paul and, eventually, Linda). Five, three and/or two minute warnings will be given, depending upon the time at which a Pub Crawl Nazi looks at their watch. You must sing the appropriate verse of "The 12 Days of Christmas" before leaving each bar.

The participants: Anyone crazy enough to join in. While some people did join us along the way at various bars (the schedule having been emailed out the week previous), only those who started at Bar 1 were truly cool.

The photographic evidence: First, a confession. I have shamelessly ripped off my photo idea from paid homage to Dave's Movie Marathon 2006 photography - at each bar, I had someone hold up the appropriate number of fingers to represent the bar in question. Or at least I attempted to. It was necessary, because I knew I was going to be in no state to remember where the hell we were in these photos by the next day. Unfortunately, I am not as skilled a technical wizard as Jorge (read: I can't figure out where on my computer my animated GIF program has run off to) so my photos are not in cool slideshow format like Dave's are.


3 pm* - Bar 1 (E & P's place). Of course, two people are showing number 1, which may lead you to believe that this is bar 2, which it is not. Clearly, the drinking has begun:



3:30 pm - Bar 2 (Bimini's). Beth shows off a festive (and highly overpriced) Amaretto Sour*:


4 pm - Erika tells us it is Bar 3, as does Linda (again, making it look like it is bar 6, rather than Bar 3). Dave K. (who was only at bar 3) shows us his two beer, further confusing our numbering system. Oh ya, this is Hell's Kitchen, which had by far the best Amaretto Sour:


4:30 pm - Showing that we are now at Bar 4 (Kitsilano Restaurant), with glass of House Red in hand.


We had the luxury of a whole hour scheduled at Kitsilano Restaurant, as we also had dinner there. And although we were surprised by how fast they could make 21 orders of chow mein, it did take slightly more than one hour. Which meant we needed to spend less than our 1/2 hr at the next bar in order to get back on schedule.

5 pm - Hence this photo:

The first few of us into Bar 5, Tatlows, started negotiate with the bartender: "We need 23 shots of something - what kind of deal can you offer us?" She agreed to make 23 Crispy Crunch shots. Which were then paid for by a total random sitting at the bar, with whom Leanne had been chatting. Said he was missing out on a holiday party that day, so he'd buy our shots and "Merry Christmas!" Merry Christmas indeed!!

And now we start to get creative! 5 shot glasses to represent Bar 5!



6 pm - Bar 6 was Darby's.


Our fearless leaders, Erika & Paul, lead us in song. "On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, six geese a-laying!" at Darby's.

6: 30 pm - Bar 7 is one of my favourite bars - Nevermind!



7 pm - Bar 8 - Lou's. Christine is holding up 3 fingers, I swear! We may be on our 8th drink (shots of Jäger, 'cuz they were on special), but we can still count!

I would also like to point out that I chatted up a hot boy, who took this photo for us:


7:30 pm - Bar 9
- The Fringe Cafe. Nick is trying to look sexy. Linda seems to find her hand amusing!


Getting a bit behind schedule, and because The Fringe Cafe really can't fit all 23 of us very comfortably, we opted for shots. Inexplicably, we chose shots of Jäger again:


8 pm - Linda's sister, Krista*** joined us at Coppertank, and was thus our model for Bar 10:

8:30 pm - Bar 11 - Mark's Fiasco - Apparently my photography skills are getting a bit fuzzy by my 11th drink, as I cut Erika's hand out of the photo. =(


9 pm - Bar 12
and we can still do math! wOOt! Good times at the Reagle Beagle:


9:30 pm 'til late: After Bar 12, we decided to celebrate having survived this insanity by going to another bar - Lola's. Where we played pool, danced and, unbelievably, drank some more.

Summary: I got the bright idea at some point during the night that I should figure out how many alcohol calories I actually consumed during thidebaucheryry. This morning, I still thought that would be a good, albeit frightening, prospect. And so, as best I can remember (using the photos as help!), I believe I consumed: a beer, an Amaretto Sour, an Amaretto Sour, white wine, Crispy Crunch shot, an Amaretto Sour, an Amaretto Sour, shot of Jäger, shot of Jäger, an Amaretto Sour, an Amaretto Sour, an Amaretto Sour, an Amaretto Sour, shot of Jäger, an Amaretto Sour. Using my diet analysis software and the wonders of the internets for research, I estimate this to be a whopping 1898 Calories!! Considering that my average caloric expenditure for a day is only 1748 Calories and I did actually eat food that day, I also estimate that I now weigh 500 lbs.

For those of you who prefer graphics to all this text, www.intox.com estimates my blood alcohol to have been:

To put that in context, drunk driving in most of Canada and the US is 80 mg/dL. Also from www.intox.com:

300 mg/100 ml of blood - At this level most people will lose conciousness.



Now, in my own defence, I don't believe my blood alcohol was this high. I didn't feel nearly that drunk****. I didn't puke, or even come close to puking. Nor did I pass out, or even fall over. I only sunk 1 ball in 2 whole games of pool, but I suck at pool, so I could easily have done that stone cold sober. Similarly, I may have knocked over the drinks of two of the three people who bought me drinks at Lola's, but I am a generally clumsy person anyway. Jesus, do I sound like I'm justifying things here or what?

Best lines of the night:

"I need your fingers" - in reference to the photos!

"If you don't look the other person in the eye during a toast, you will have 7 years of bad sex." Response: "Oh my god, is that consecutive??"

E: "Hookups trump relationships" This was in reference to the priority list for who, of all the people crashing at E & P's, would get the spare bedroom (a hookup couple would get priority over a relationship couple, which would get priority over a single person). My response to this: "I agree with that statement in every possible connotation"*****



Conclusion: A fun time was had by all, even though it will take me at least 17 weeks of running to burn off all those calories. Anyone who didn't do all 12 bars is a wimp. Better luck next year!


*Times are approximate... we pretty much stuck to the schedule, so the times are basically correct, ± 15 minutes.

**I was drinking Amaretto Sours for a very good reason - I wanted a drink that I could consume most of the night without getting alcohol poisoning. I thought that was reasonable.

***At least I think her name was Krista... I'm not good with names at the best of times!

****And clearly I was in the proper state to judge such a thing.

*****For the record, there were no hookups. Sorry to disappoint!



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wicked.

You can steal ideas anytime, due to the fact that you are hotter than me.

You should have told me you wanted a slideshow, too, because then I would have made one for you.

Hugs,
J

Beth said...

J - I would have asked, but I was posting at 2 am your time and figured you wouldn't have wanted me to call at such an hour. =P

Anonymous said...

You were drinking amaretto sours in honor of me, of course!!

And I'm in favor of the hookups rule, too!

Alcohol is good. And I think you should get in touch with Andrew, one of my very best friends, who is actually an alcohol researcher/scientist, or something like that. Maybe he could help with A.R.M. research!

Anonymous said...

Insanity! You truly are the Patron Saint of Wasted Time. And I like how some people are way excited to hold up fingers for the picture, and others are like I'm too cool for this shit, but I'll do it anyways.